


She's a Rebel (in which Musichetta really doesn't like being left out of a Revolution)

by LilySayuri



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, F/F, F/M, I promise, M/M, Multi, Song Lyrics, a little angsty maybe, based on American Idiot by Green Day, it's cute tho, way too many french pet names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 13:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14853363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilySayuri/pseuds/LilySayuri
Summary: She smiled sweetly, looking like an angel, but there was a rebellious light in her eyes.I've been listening the whole American Idiot album by Green Day again and this came out.





	She's a Rebel (in which Musichetta really doesn't like being left out of a Revolution)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to Barricade Day.  
> [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOv5fF7maFY)'s the song if you want to listen to it while you read.
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!

_“She's a rebel_

_She's a saint_

_She's the salt of the earth_

_And she's dangerous_

_[...]_

_She sings the revolution_

_The dawning of our lives_

_She brings this liberation_

_That I just can't define_

_Well, nothing comes to mind”_

 

Musichetta was sprawled on the bed, gloriously naked, her head on Bossuet’s shoulder and her hand tracing shapes on Joly’s chest.

Joly shuffled closer to her side and she let him rest his head on her bare stomach, moving her fingers to his hair. Bossuet reached out to tangle his hand in Joly’s blond locks and he sighed contentedly.

_I’m in heaven_ , he thought lazily.

“I’m sorry, _mon poussin_ _”_ said Musichetta after a while - too soon for Joly’s liking “I need to go. _Someone_ has to work” she teased tugging lightly at his hair.

Joly whined as she got up, forcing him to rest his head on the mattress, so cold and hard compared to her skin.

"Why?" lamented Bossuet voicing Joly’s thoughts while pulling him closer and starting again to stroke his hair.

"Because I have rent to pay?" she retorted sarcastically, her voice muffled by the chemise she was putting on.

"You should come live with us, then!" blurted out Bossuet excitedly "You already spend most of your time here anyway!".

Joly felt the mattress sink as she sat on the bed to put on her socks, still resolved to go.

"I’m not married to either of you, how do you think it will look? Who would give a job to a girl who lives alone with two men? I already have to hide when I’m with you" she explained patiently as she got into those funny pantaloons.

"But, _minette_..." protested Bossuet.

Musichetta didn’t let him finish: "And of course I would still need to work, you don’t have any income except for your parents’ monthly allowance which is barely enough to sustain two people, let alone three".

He looked devastated.

Joly planted a quick kiss on his clavicle and said: "She does have a point, _nounours_ , you know that she is way better at mathematics than both of us".

She shot at him an amused look and bent to put on her shoes.

"And that’s why I should go to university to learn medicine and science instead of teaching children basic additions" she said fastening her shoelaces.

"That’s what we’re fighting for" said Bossuet with a sad smile "You deserve the right to study. Everyone does".

She turned to give him a chaste kiss on the lips and Joly snuggled even more into him. They had an unsaid agreement: whenever he was feeling down, they’d try their best to cheer him up as soon as possible. Bossuet’s bad mood was not only unnatural, but also strangely contagious.

"I’m sorry, _mes coeurs_ , you know that if I could, I would come live with you without even thinking about it" she murmured softly, kissing his cheekbone.

"We are fighting for that too" said Joly earning a kiss on the temple.

"I wish I could come to the meetings at your gentlemen club. I wish I could fight with you" she sighed, standing up to pick up her corset left abandoned on the floor.

"If Enjolras could hear you calling Les Amis de l’ABC a gentlemen club!" laughed Bossuet, back to his usual cheerful self "He would be _so_ angry".

"You know women are not allowed into Les Amis" stepped in Joly, weakly. He knew how this would end up "We have already discussed that".

"Why? I think a woman’s perspective is vital for your cause since you claim to be fighting for our rights too" said Musichetta energetically "And you say I should go to university, but you forbid me to participate in a students’ group" Bossuet was about to talk, but she anticipated him "And workers’, I know, but am I not a worker just because I work in a school? And yes, _mes chous_ , you said that you mainly talk about politics and that I would surely be bored. Are you really sure politics would bore me, though? This is the world I live in, I deserve to have a say on how it is run just like you do”.

She sighed deeply.

“But we did already discuss it, _mes amours_ , I’m sure you already know what I think and that I do not have to repeat myself" she said in a tone that was supposed to be meek, but didn't fool anyone.

She smiled sweetly, looking like an angel, but there was a rebellious light in her eyes.

Joly couldn't find anything to counter that, her reasoning was completely logical. If she were a man, she’d rightfully be a member of Les Amis de l’ABC.

"Now, since you were so kind to remind me of my constrictions, can one of you gentlemen help me with this cage, the symbol of every woman's restraint?" she asked with a sarcastic grin and a pompous voice, holding out her corset.

Joly really wasn’t in the mood to get up, especially now that Bossuet was nuzzling against his cheekbone leaving a trail of kisses from his temple to his ear. Musichetta, though, really didn’t seem to be in the frame of mind to put her corset on by herself and Bossuet seemed very determined to stay where he was.

He sighed deeply and got up, trying keep contact with Bossuet’s steady chest for as long as he could.

The other man gave off a low whine and flailed his arms in the air trying to catch him, but it was too late, he had already walked to the centre of the room where Musichetta was looking at him expectantly.

"Good boy" she said, her eyes sparkling "You could help too" she huffed to Bossuet who was still slouching on the bed.

"But I can admire both of you much better from here" he retorted grinning lazily.

She rolled her eyes and got into the corset, turning her back to Joly.

He carefully reached out to take the strings and gave a gentle tug.

“ _Poussin_ , you’ll have to pull harder, it’s hardly touching my skin” she scolded him tenderly.

Joly gave another tug, firmier this time.

“Harder! If I go out like this, M.me _Bégueule,_ who’s always sewing on her porch and snooping around with her long and filthy nose, will think: _‘The little slut who comes and goes from those two students’ house looks like a bag of potatoes!’_ , the old hag” she was laughing, but her voice wavered with hurt.  

“She wouldn't dare!” Bossuet blurted out, the worry masked in a playful tone “You’re beautiful, corset or no corset”.

Joly rubbed her back soothingly and decided that tomorrow, he would go talk to their neighbour, whose real name was M.me Droit, who was indeed a bit prying.

“ _Nounours_ ” she said softly, blowing him a kiss over her shoulder “Thank you, but you should tell M.me _Bégueule,_ though I think she’d turn that enormous beak she calls nose up to you”.

Joly took the strings and began pulling again, but she batted his hands away and swiftly tightened  the corset by herself, starting from the bottom.

“Sorry, _Poussin_ , but if you keep doing it like that we could stay here all day” she said with a quick grin, tightening the corset more and more “And if I wanted to stay here all day I wouldn’t have put it on in the first place. Being naked is so much more comfortable and fun” she added cheerfully, probably imagining a hopeful expression on Joly and Bossuet’s faces.

“How do you _breathe_?” Bossuet asked instead, horrified, voicing once again Joly’s thoughts.

Musichetta turned, surprised by his tone and laughed seeing the identical bewildered expression painted on their faces.

“I don’t” and she chuckled at Joly’s outrage “I’m joking, _poussin,_ don’t worry, it’s not tight enough. You know those rich and beautiful ladies you see at the Luxembourg, though? They really don’t breathe, that’s why they faint all the time”.

She finished fastening it, made a simple knot on the front and admired herself in the small mirror on the door, satisfied.

“I thought they were faking it” Bossuet said weakly.

“I’ll tell you a secret, if you tell anyone else I’ll have to kill you” she whispered amused “Sometimes they do fake it when they want to get out an uncomfortable situation. I’d do it too! It’s a pity I wouldn’t be believable”

“How can you _move_?” Joly asked, watching wide eyed as she bent to pick up the petticoat from the floor.

“I use my knees, you know? Those things in the middle of the legs. You have them too” she snorted and to prove her point she got into the petticoat bending her knees exaggeratedly.

“Why do you _do_ this?” Bossuet uttered in disbelief.

“Wear a corset? Because we look good!” she exclaimed while she finally got into the gown “And because they don’t make dresses that can be worn without a corset”.

Joly observed her as she put on her ink-stained apron and fixed her hair with bobby pins so sharp that they could probably kill a man.

He had never thought about what women had to go through every day in order to be considered pretty.

He remembered an anatomy class he took not long ago, in which he studied a skeleton of an aristocratic woman who was beheaded in 1793 and her body donated to science. He had noticed that the ribs and vertebrae were deformed, but the professor said that it was normal and he didn’t question it further.

_I will never call a woman dainty again_ , he thought horror-struck, _I can’t even begin to imagine all the pain and discomfort they have to endure every day._

Meanwhile, Musichetta kept talking: “I’m not one to talk, though. Just think about those poor Luxembourg ladies, they have to tighten it so much they literally can’t do _anything_! If it were up to me, the revolution you always go on and on about at your little club would be the Women’s Revolution and we’d make barricades out of corsets”

She put on her hat, tied the laces and kissed both Bossuet and Joly goodbye as they stared blankly at her.

“You know? Your beloved Rousseau wrote against the use of corsets. And for a while Marie Antoinette, after reading his works, refused to wear it. The one thing she got right” she mused.

Then she paced to the door and disappeared with a quick: “Adieu!”

*

Enjolras couldn’t get anyone’s attention that evening.

It all began when Bossuet and Joly rushed to the meeting late - which was something he was ready to forgive mercifully - and then started babbling about women, corsets and Rousseau (and he was still struggling to understand how on earth the great _Philosophe_ was related to the other two) distracting all the other members of Les Amis de l’ABC. Now, _that_ was something that he wouldn’t let slip so easily, not that night.

So, he took the floor severely: “Do I need to remind you that Lamarque is ill and that he is going to die soon?”.

Silence fell on the little back room of the Musain.

“It is our chance to make the Revolution happen and yet we are here blabbering about corsets. Don’t you think we have much more pressing matters to discuss? We can talk about them when the Revolution is ended. Remember, we’re doing this for women too” he said softening his tone a bit.

Everyone nodded, even Joly and Bossuet, though they seemed a bit reluctant.

And they went back to their usual debate.

 

 

_“She's the symbol_

_Of resistance_

_And she's holding on my heart_

_Like a hand grenade”_

**Author's Note:**

> Some translations:  
> Mon poussin: my little chick  
> Minette: kitty (yes, Patron Minette means Boss Kitty which is hilarious)  
> Nounours: teddy bear  
> Mes coeurs: my hearts  
> Mes chous: my sweet buns (un chou à la crème is a cream filled puff pastry)  
> Mes amours: my loves  
> Bégueule: prig  
> M.me Droit: Mrs Straight, Upright (according to google it's a real surname in France)  
> I'm not French, although I studied it, so if something's not right please tell me!
> 
>  
> 
> So this is me complaining through Musichetta that Les Amis de l'ABC didn't allow women in.  
> For this chapter I made quite a bit of research on corsets and 1830s fashion, it's very interesting. If you want to see it you can contact me on my [tumblr](http://lilysayuri-chan.tumblr.com/) and I'll give to you all the links to the pages I read.  
> Thanks to the awesome [burntblackfeathers](http://burntblackfeathers.tumblr.com/) who even though she had exams, she still found some time to beta this fic!  
> If you leave a kudo or a comment (or both. Go wild) I'll be forever grateful <3  
> Thank you for reading!  
> 


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